


Just A Memory

by NephilimEQ



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:18:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4409849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NephilimEQ/pseuds/NephilimEQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is not who he thinks he is.  Well, he is, but...he isn't. Hunter or not, he has a past that he needs to understand, and only Cas can help him. But the real question is...who is Cas to him? (Reviews make me happy!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this idea came from a conversation that I had on Tumblr with some wonderful people and they allowed me to use their plot bunny for a story. :) The link is here: http://nephilimeq.tumblr.com/post/122942779241/idk-if-you-want-to-write-this-cause-its-a-sad-and#notes

** **

 

**Just A Memory **

**Chapter 1**

Dean Winchester let out a long, aggravated sigh as he shoved his few clothes into his bag. Another motel, another dead end. He wasn’t entirely sure what was driving him to keep looking, but he knew that he couldn’t give up. He and Sam had been following a skinwalker that was taking on the forms of local celebrities and using their cache to do whatever it wanted, and even though it wasn’t doing anything bad, it was still a danger to the communities, so they were trying to track it down.

Easier said than done.

They were in a small town called Lamoni, Iowa, and now they were headed west, out to who knows where.

Sam walked in just as he was finishing packing his duffel, and he smiled at him, though not with much conviction, and said, “Hey, Sammy. You got us provisions?”

He gave him a grim nod.

“Yeah, provisions,” he said, putting the filled plastic bag on the table. He then left it there and walked over to his own bag, which was only partially filled, a green plaid button up shirttail sticking out of it. Dean smiled as his brother began to carefully fold each shirt and put it in his bag. Typical Sammy.

They may not have had any leads, but at least the two of them were finally getting along in the way that they used to, back in the beginning. That was something that he’d been certain would never happen, actually, and now that it had he almost felt…off balance. Dean had somehow gotten used to the usual give and take of their unbalanced, unhealthy relationship. Hell, the two of them hadn’t even had a fight in…wait. Just how long had it been?

The older hunter thought back, trying to place when their last argument was…and came up empty. If it had been that long ago, then maybe something was up. Something that Sam wasn’t telling him.

He wanted to linger on that thought, but the urgency to find the skinwalker moved to the front of his mind, and he brushed it off to the side. Now was not the time to worry; right now, they had to hunt down the monster that was taking over people’s lives.

A knock on the door, however, broke him from his thoughts, and he answered it.

“Uh, Mr. Winchester?” said a man who was roughly five foot nothing with a weak chin. “I’m Frank Hassel and I’m the motel manager. I heard that you were checking out a full two days early, and I just wanted to make sure that your stay wasn’t cut short for anything that we might have done.”

Dean shook his head.

“No, sir. My brother and I just had something come up with work. We’re in a…family business.”

Mr. Hassel nodded, glancing over Dean’s shoulder into the room, and then said, “Oh, you checked in with your brother? The desk clerk said that you checked in alone.”

Dean chuckled and motioned towards his brother, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, the laptop in his lap as he checked the location of where they were headed to next. Sam looked up and smiled and waved at the short man in the doorway, and Dean withheld another chuckle at the sight. He knew that look. That was Sam’s get-that-guy-out-of-here look.

“So, you see, it’s not your fault sir. Thanks for dropping by.”

The man gave him a look.

“Well, when your brother shows up, please tell him that I hope his stay was an enjoyable one, at least. Thank you, Mr. Winchester,” he added, and then scampered away from the door, looking spooked, and leaving Dean confused.

“What’s with that?” he said as he closed the door. “Dude acted like you weren’t even there.”

Sam simply looked at him, now standing in the middle of the room, his laptop over on the small table next to the window. His arms were crossed over his chest and he had an odd look in his eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then just shook his head and said, “Who knows? Let’s just get out of here.”

“Amen to that, compadre,” Dean replied, grabbing his bag and heading out to the Impala. He threw his bag in the back and waited for Sam, who came out moments after him, his bag packed and his computer under his arm. As soon as he closed the door, Dean pulled out and headed to the highway, where he felt that strange feeling finally disappear. He popped on the radio and switched it over to the local classic rock station.

Blue Oyster Cult’s “I’m Burnin’ For You” started to blast through the speakers and Dean grinned.

Yeah, now _that’s_ what he was talking about. Nothing was better than good music and a road in front of you, knowing that you had a hunt to look forward to. After turning up the volume, he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove, bobbing his head along with the beat, enjoying the moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam roll his eyes and he smiled. Yeah, now that was the brother he knew and loved.

“So, where we headed to, Sammy?”

“Valentine, Nebraska. It’s about a six hour drive, so if you want, I can drive for--”

Dean cut him off, saying, “Oh no, you don’t. Baby is mine and mine alone. I’m not lettin’ you touch her. Not after the last time.”

Sam just grinned, as if he knew exactly how his brother would react to such a suggestion…which he did. Dean swore that Sam did that just to rile him up. It was like he got a kick out of seeing how protective Dean was about his Impala, but who could blame him? That car had seen him through some rough times and through every single hunt that he’d ever been on. His Baby was the one constant in his life, no matter what…well, there was also Sam, but it wasn’t the same thing.

Two and half hours into the drive, Sam fell asleep, and Dean lowered the volume on the radio, his mind going back to what had happened in the motel room and how the manager hadn’t seen his brother. That had been strange, but maybe the guy just had really bad eyesight.

He mentally shrugged. Oh, well. Why did it matter anyway? It continued to linger on the edge of his thoughts, like there was something that he was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

He glanced at the passenger’s seat out of the corner of his eye and nearly swerved off the road when he saw an empty seat.

He straightened the car, tightening his fingers on the wheel and then looked back at the seat…and there was his brother, all six foot four of him. Dean breathed out a sigh of relief, but at the same time wondered what the hell had just happened. This was not normal. And it couldn’t just be a coincidence. The manager not seeing him and then Dean had suddenly been unable to see him? Had a witch put a spell on him or something? That might explain it.

Realizing that he couldn’t do anything about it, he turned his gaze back on the road and continued to drive to Valentine, Nebraska. Hopefully, they’d find the skinwalker there and finish their hunt. Afterwards, he thought that they just might take a vacation. Somewhere tropical.

Yeah, tropical would be nice. Beaches , beers, and bikinis…sounded like his kind of place.

He pulled up to a gas station and reached over and shoved Sam’s shoulder, waking him up.

“Dude, get up.”

Sam rubbed his eyes, and then looked at him, obviously annoyed at being woken up.

“Why?”

“Because I need you to pump gas while I hit the head, that’s why. Now, fill ‘er up,” he said abruptly, tossing him his wallet after pulling out some of his cash and heading for the can. After he was done, he slipped inside the gas station and picked up a couple of twinkies. It was the one thing that Sammy never bought, mister-health-food-nut.

Normally, he never let his brother fill up the Impala, but this was the exception; his bladder had been uncomfortably close to bursting.

After he’d paid for the sugary snack, he went back to the car…to find Sam fast asleep in the passenger’s seat. Dammit, he couldn’t ask him to do anything! Deciding to not wake his brother back up, he filled up the tank, and then realized that he’d used the last of his cash on the snack, so he would have to pay with credit card. Groaning, he reluctantly slid it through, declining the machine’s offer of a receipt.

He then started the car back up and, just like that, they were back on the road heading for Valentine, Nebraska. Dean simply wanted to catch the damn skinwalker so that they could have their vacation. They _really_ needed one.

After four more hours, they’d arrived in Valentine, and Dean pulled into the first motel in town, The Trade Winds Motel. This town was small enough that it should take them no time to find the skinwalker and who he was impersonating. No time at all.

As soon as they checked in, Sam pulled out his laptop and went to work looking for local anomalies.

Dean threw his bag on the twin bed and headed for the bathroom for a shower. He was hot and sweaty after the long drive. The summer heat was still prevalent in the night air, which was strange for this far up north, so he’d found himself taking even more showers than usual in an attempt to keep the grime from settling into his skin.

Moments after he’d stepped in, he heard Sammy yell, “I found something! I’m gonna go check with the local sheriff, alright?”

“Sounds good!” he yelled back, and then ducked his head under the hot spray. God, that felt good. He let the hot water do its job, and let it sluice into the dirt and sweat that clung to him like a second skin; an _uncomfortable_ second skin.

A few minutes later, freshly washed and shampooed, he stepped out of the shower, towel drying his hair after drying off the rest of his body, and then, wrapping the same towel around his waist, he went to his duffel and pulled out clean a pair of clean jeans and a slightly wrinkled shirt. The instant he threw his shirt over his head, however, there was a knock on the door. He immediately went on his guard, and grabbed the knife from the side compartment of his bag and slipped it behind his back.

Unless Sam had forgotten his key, which he highly doubted, there was no one that would knock on that door…besides, possibly, the manager, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. For all he knew, the skinwalker had discovered it was being followed and decided to come and finish off Dean while Sam was away.

He looked through the peephole in the door…and let out a sigh of relief.

It was Cas.

But just as he was about to swing open the door, he remembered. He was an angel. Why would an angel knock on a door? At that thought, his hand went back to the knife, tucked between his shirt and his jeans, and he cautiously wrapped his fingers around it as he opened the door.

Cas, instead of shoving his way past him as the hunter would have expected, just stood there, staring at him.

Finally, he said, “Dean…is that really you?”

Confused, his fingers loosened their grip on the hilt of the blade behind his back and he replied, “Uh, yeah, Cas. Are you okay? Usually you just pop in. Something wrong with your mojo?”

This time it was Cas who looked confused, as if he didn’t understand what Dean was saying. And then that was when Dean noticed that Cas wasn’t wearing his usual clothes. Instead of a wrinkled suit, backwards blue necktie and trench coat, he was wearing worn out jeans, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket.

“Uh, dude…what’s with the clothes? Yours finally wear out?”

He had moved out of the doorway, but Cas continued to stand there, staring at him, as if he was seeing a ghost, and it was making the hunter more than a bit uncomfortable. This wasn’t Cas’ usual staring; this was something completely different. There almost seemed to be…affection.

“Dean…”

His voice sounded shocked, wounded, amazed, and confused all at once and the only thing that Dean could think of that would garner such a reaction was that something terrible had happened and the angel didn’t know how to tell him. Letting out an exasperated sigh, he pulled the knife from behind his back and put it back in his bag, not noticing how Cas flinched when he saw the knife. Dean sat down on the bed and put his hands to either side of him and said, “Just tell me, Cas. Whatever the horrible news is, just tell me.”

Again, confusion colored the angel’s face.

“What are you talking about, Dean?”

He arched an eyebrow and said, “You’re kidding me, right? You come in here wearing clothes that aren’t yours and you’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost, or something worse, and you’re giving me one of those looks that you give me right before you tell me something horrible has happened. I may be tired, but I’m not blind.”

Cas just continued to look at him in the same way, and then finally nodded.

“You’re right. I do have news, and it’s not very good, but it’s not horrible. Actually, now that I know that you remember me, then I guess you might already know why I’m here,” he said enigmatically, leaving Dean profoundly in the dark about what was going on. What the hell did Cas mean when he said that Dean was able to remember him? Why wouldn’t he remember him? He was only the one who had, as the angel had once so eloquently put it, ‘gripped him tight and raised him from perdition’.

Dean simply nodded in return and said, “Well, can it wait ‘til Sam gets back from talking to the sheriff?”

At hearing his brother’s name, the angel’s blue eyes darkened and his visage clouded. He dropped his head and uncharacteristically put his hands in his pockets and said, “You really don’t remember, do you, Dean?”

“Remember what?”

Cas looked at him solemnly, and then said, in a dead serious tone, “Sam died nine years ago, Dean. I’ve been looking for you ever since.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

**Chapter 2**

Dean stared at the angel and then stood up and shook his head, saying, “This isn’t funny, Cas.  And when Sam gets back, he’s gonna kick your ass for the bad joke.  I thought you were going to tell me that the world was ending again and there was nothing we could do to stop it.  _That_ I could handle.  Now, what’s with the new clothes?

He looked the angel over and then turned back to his bag, laughing under his breath at the sight of Cas in something other than his signature trench coat as he pulled out his father’s journal.  If there was another way to find the skinwalker his father would have written about it, of that Dean was certain.  But as he thumbed through the worn out and dog eared pages, the blue eyed man appeared startled, and looked at the journal in Dean’s hands in shock.

“Where did you get your father’s journal, Dean?” he said, sincere astonishment in his tone.

Dean looked at him in disbelief and replied with, “Whaddya mean where’d I get this, Cas?  It was my dad’s; he kept it with his supplies in the Impala.  Remember?”

Cas shook his head as though disappointed in him, and glanced down at the carpet as he said, “This has gone on too long, Dean.  We need to talk.  Can we sit down?” Dean nodded, wondering what the hell was going on, and they sat down on the edge of his bed, with nearly two feet of empty space between them. 

Cas let out a small sigh, clasped his hands in his lap, and then said, “Dean…my name is Doctor Castiel Novak.  You were admitted into my care fifteen years ago with extreme Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for short.  I was in the process of treating you when you brother, Sam Winchester, unexpectedly passed away. The sudden onset of his death caused you to have a psychotic break and you managed to escape from where you were being treated at Two Rivers Hospital in Lawrence, Kansas.  I’ve been looking for you ever since.  It’s time for you to come home, now.”

Dean sat there in silence for a moment…and then started laughing.  The other man’s eyes went wide, obviously not expecting such a reaction, and then Dean said, “Cas, I don’t know what game you’re playin’, or if your brother Gabriel is still alive and just messin’ with us, either way, major props for plotline.  When Sammy gets back, we’ll talk about the fact that I’m supposedly an escaped mental patient, alright?”

Cas just looked at him sadly, and then put a careful hand on Dean’s knee and said, “Sam isn’t _here_ , Dean.”

The hunter pointed over at the bed with Sam’s duffel at the end of it and at the table that still had the laptop lying on top of it, and said, “Oh, really?  Then why is his stuff here?”

Cas looked over at the two places where Dean had pointed and just shook his head and said, “Dean…there’s nothing there.”  Dean laughed and turned to look over at his brother’s anally packed bag…and it wasn’t there.  He closed his eyes for a second, reliving his moment in the car, and looked back at the bed, certain he’d see it…but it still wasn’t there.

Feeling himself start to panic, he looked over at the table…and nothing sat on top of it.  No sign of his laptop anywhere in the room.

His pulse rapidly rising, he looked back at a pair of familiar blue eyes, which were looking at him with the same sad expression as before and tried to calm himself down from the heart attack that he was certain that he was about to have.  This had to be a witch or something, messing with his head.  Of course, he quickly rationalized.  That was how the skinwalker was keeping from getting himself caught! It explained why they’d been one step behind him the whole time…he was working with a witch!

Quickly, Dean stood up and moved over to the other bed and flipped open his father’s journal, certain he could find out what kind of spell a witch would cast to have this effect on him.  In fact, if _this_ Cas was a hallucination…then that meant he could pray to the real Cas to get him out of it!

Thrilled that he actually had a plan, he began to pray out loud, “Cas, bud, if you can hear this, I need you to get your angel ass down here and wreak some serious havoc on whatever witch is doin’ this, alright?  She’s got a pretty damn convincing hallucination of you down here, but it’s not wearing your clothes, which is how I know it’s not you, so…do your thing and prove to me that you’re the real one…”

Dean waited, knowing that Castiel would certainly come for a good reason like this one…and was shocked as he stood there for over a minute, with no reply.

The fake Cas slowly stood up and walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, just like _his_ Cas, and he softly said, “Dean…you need help.  Your brother’s death was the final thing that caused your mental walls to break.  After the loss of your mother and father in the fire, he was the only thing that kept you from going too far.  But now it’s time to come home…”  His voice drifted as he slowly pulled him into a hug, and Dean was unsure of how to react.

This _had_ to be fake, it couldn’t be real.  He had spent the last nine years of his life with his brother, battling vampires, werewolves, skinwalkers, demons and angels…and this man who said he was Doctor Castiel Novak was claiming that it had all been a hallucination?  All nine years of it?

It was crazy…and yet he realized that a part of himself was willing to believe it, and he knew why.

He remembered the case where he’d gotten more and more paranoid, and he remembered what he’d said to Sam at one point…

_“Sam, what are we doin’?”_

_“We’re hunting a ghost.”_

_“A ghost! Exactly! Who does that?”_

_“Us.”_

_“Us! Right.  And that, Sam, is exactly why our lives suck.  I mean, c’mon! We hunt monsters! What the hell? I mean normal people, they see a monster and they run, but not us, no, no, we search out things that want to kill us! Or eat us! You know who does that?  Crazy people! We…are insane!  And then there’s the bad diner food, and then the skeevy motel rooms, and the truck stop waitress with the bizarre rash… Who wants this life, Sam, huh, seriously? I mean, do you actually like being stuck in a car with me eight hours a day every single day? I don’t think so! I mean, I drive too fast, and I listen to the same five albums over and over and over again, and, and I sing along, and I’m annoying, I, I know that…”_

It all rushed back to him…and he wondered why it had never occurred to him before that it might not all be real.  How was it that he’d never owned more than five albums? And they only ate _bad_ diner food? There were diners with good food out there; he couldn’t have had _that_ much bad luck.  Actually, when it came down to it, his life was a bit like a supernatural soap opera, to be honest, what with Sam having a demon lover who sort of wanted to help them, but was still also evil.  And then there was Crowley…hell, he was a soap opera unto himself.

Why had it never occurred to him that it might not be real?

He finally gave into the hug and returned it slightly, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he had, _possibly_ , been living in a hallucination for the past nine years.

It was a terrifying idea…but one that he found he wasn’t too against.  Yes, it would be horrible to accept the fact that his family was dead, but honestly, after the hell that he’d been through over the past nine years…it was almost a relief.  And, hey…apparently Cas was still real, just not as he’d remembered.

Not an angel, just a doctor.  He could live with that.

He tightened his grip, but at the same time, felt a trickle of fear.  If he’d been hallucinating for the past nine years, then where the hell had he been and what had he really been doing?

Slowly, he pulled away and saw that the sad and worried look on Castiel’s face had changed into a hopeful one.  He clasped his hand over his shoulder and looked him directly in the eye.

“Don’t worry, Dean.  You’ll get better.”

Dean just nodded and reached over and grabbed his bag, still inwardly wincing when he still could no longer see Sam’s bag or laptop.  It was hard to comprehend, but unless an angelic Cas showed up in a trench coat, he would have to try and accept the fact that it was possible that he was living in a hallucination.

Cautiously, he followed Cas outside to his car, and, just before he got into the passenger’s side, he said, “What about my car?  I can’t just leave Baby here. Unless…that isn’t real, too?”

The angel…no, the _man_ , chuckled, and shook his head.

“The car’s real, Dean.  It was your father’s and it was left to you.  You took it with you when you escaped.  I’ll call a tow company to bring it back to facility, for now, until we can find a new storage unit for it.”  He gave him a soft look and then unexpectedly added, “Thank you for trusting me, Dean.”

The green-eyed hunter simply nodded and then sat back as Cas drove them out of town, several doubts still lingering in the back of his mind.  As they drove, the new Cas pulled out a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number and then casted reassuring smiles in Dean’s direction as he did exactly as he said he would and called a tow truck to take the car back to Lawrence, Kansas.  After he got off the phone, silence fell in the car for several minutes, until Cas turned on the radio.

As Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home” came through the speakers, the doctor gave Dean a soft smile and asked, “You still like classic rock?”

Dean couldn’t help but smile and nod.

“Yeah.  Can’t go wrong with classic rock…”

“…or a classic car,” Cas finished for him, smiling at him broadly, and the hunter gave him a look.  Cas glanced out the window and then said, “You used to say that all the time, Dean.  I _told_ you, I know you.  Well, I guess I should say, I _knew_ you.  For over three years.”  He gave him another half-smile and added, “You were doing so well before…well, before your brother’s accident.”

Dean just nodded, not knowing what to say to him.  Seeing Cas smiling so much made him realize that it truly wasn’t the angel that he was used to.  However, he still wasn’t _entirely_ convinced that everything that was happening was real.  A part of him still felt that he was living in a hallucination, se he took everything that he was hearing with a grain of salt.  Yes, it may have sounded very real, but that was how hallucinations worked; they seemed completely _real_.

He kept on glancing from the corner of his eye, the sight of Cas driving very strange for him…but then he reminded himself.  This wasn’t the Cas that he knew.  This was…something different.  He sounded like him and looked like him…hell, he even smelled like him, but it _wasn’t_ him.

Cas never looked at him in that soft way, or gave him such wonderful smiles.  The most he’d ever gotten out of him was maybe a hint of a smile; nothing like the toothy, broad grin that stretched across his face and made Dean feel as though he’d hung the moon for him…and where the _hell_ was _that_ coming from?  How had he gone from not trusting the man to…that?  Shaking it off, he looked out the window and then looked back at Cas, who was silently mouthing the words to the song as they drove, his thumbs absently tapping out the beat on the steering wheel….just like Dean did whenever he drove.

After several minutes of silent driving, Dean finally got up the nerve to ask, “Uh, how’d you find me?”  It was the one thing that had been bothering him.  How was it. Doctor Novak had found him by chance after nine whole years?  Why hadn’t he been able to find him until then?

Cas let out a sigh and eased his grip on the wheel, and then reached over and lowered the volume.

“You’ve apparently been using cash this entire time, making you very hard to track.  I came close, once, when your face was on the news…but I never caught up to you.  Because you were on the news, I convinced the FBI to keep an open trace on any credit cards you might use under several different aliases, and there was a hit yesterday at a gas station not too far from where I had been searching for you.  They called me and told me where you were, so I came to get you.”

Dean gave him a look.

“The…FBI?  Why would the FBI be interested in me?”

He said nothing for several seconds, and then said, “What’s important is that you’re safe, Dean.  Please, don’t push.  I’ll tell you everything when you need to know it.  Right now, I just want to get you safely home.”

Ignoring the use of the word ‘home’, Dean finally asked the question that had really been burning inside of him.

“So…how did…how did Sam die?”

The smile that had still been lingering on the corner of the doctor’s mouth disappeared and his eyes darkened like before, in the motel room.

“I really don’t think we should talk about that just yet, Dean.  I’d like to get you back and see what you can remember on your own.”  Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Cas cut him off, saying, “No.  If I tell you what happened, instead of having you remember it yourself, it could distort the actual memory and that would be detrimental to your recovery.  We’ll talk about it when we get there.”

Surprised at the edge in his tone, he simply nodded and said, “Yeah, sure.”

The two of them fell back into silence.

It was going to be a long drive.

 

 


End file.
